Ditch EU constitution, says Blair

The European Union should ditch plans for a constitution, Prime Minister Tony Blair has said.

Instead, reforms to make the expanded Europe of 27 nations more effective should be included in a conventional treaty, of the kind that has been seen many times in the Union's 50-year history.

Speaking at 10 Downing Street, following talks with Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende, Mr Blair gave his backing to a Dutch proposal for an "amending treaty".

Mr Balkenende said the change might free some EU governments from the commitment they have made to hold referendums on the constitutional treaty, which was given a resounding thumbs-down by voters in France and the Netherlands in 2005.

But Mr Blair insisted that it was not simply a question of removing the word "constitution" from the document's title. An amending treaty should contain only those elements needed to make the EU work better and not measures which led to fears of a Brussels-run superstate. "It is important we go back to the idea of a conventional treaty where the idea is to make Europe more effective, work more effectively, because we now have a Europe of 27 countries rather than 15," said Mr Blair.

EU leaders gathering in Germany in June should "go back to that idea of a conventional amending treaty rather than a treaty with the characteristics of a constitution", said Mr Blair.

Some 18 countries have already ratified the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe agreed by EU political leaders in 2004. But Mr Blair suggested several of the other EU states will face difficulties securing their voters' approval for the constitution if it is revived by Germany, the current holders of the European Presidency.

It was time to end the uncertainty over the constitution which was diverting the EU's attention away from the key issues preoccupying ordinary people, such as the economy, climate change and organised crime.

"I think the important thing is that if we want to get this resolved, then we have to understand that even though there are 18 of the countries that have ratified the constitutional treaty, there are other countries that really will have a difficulty with a constitutional treaty rather than a treaty, say, in the tradition of the treaty that we negotiated in Amsterdam some 10 years ago," said Mr Blair.

Mr Blair declined to discuss precisely what elements of the constitution he would like to see retained in a new treaty, saying that this should be a matter for discussion and negotiations with fellow EU states. But Mr Balkenende suggested that an amending treaty could include measures to make clear the division of powers between Brussels and member-states, as well as strengthening the role of national parliaments and setting out the rules for further enlargement of the EU.